Much love to the art journalers!

I have been overwhelmed by the great response to our first Art Journal Friday at The Scrappy Tree over this weekend :) much gratitude to everyone who took part! If you want to see the great artwork that people made, please check out our Ning site for the links and pics.

Here's my effort :-

I want to say thank you in particular to those who joined in to support a new art journaler, and also those who are new to art journaling and were brave enough to post (thanks Jules and Cherry - look here and here) - you're wonderful, each and every one of you!

I want to mention Rinda at Gallo Organico, who is also running an Alice prompt this weekend and was kind enough to signpost over to The Scrappy Tree as well :) Rinda, this is my entry for your fabulous giveaway, good luck to everybody who took part!

I would also like to mention Monica at Bohemian Shadows - even though she isn't as big as fan of Alice and Wonderland as me, she was kind enough to work with the prompt I posted :) if you're interested in some further prompts, Monica has one running at the moment - I know I will be taking part in this one!

I will be posting on The Scrappy Tree tomorrow to say thank you to everybody as the challenge is still open as I type this - I'll be running the next prompt on 26th March, but feel free to call in before then if you have something to share or just want to say hi :) thanks for the support!

Art Journal Friday!

Ok, it's up! Art Journal Friday has landed at The Scrappy Tree! :)

I want to say thanks to Kristin and Julie for humouring me ;) and letting me post something I'm really passionate about :)

Without further ado, may I please direct you to The Scrappy Tree...

In memory of Mags

So I'm getting nervous and a bit excited about posting my little art journaling challenge over at The Scrappy Tree on Friday! The glory of being a member of The Scrappy Tree is that it's about using whatever medium works for you, which fits with art journaling in a lot of ways - I hope that people who haven't tried it before will have a go, whether it means trying a new technique or using what they know and are comfortable with. Anything goes!

My camera battery is flat as a pancake so no pics of anything to share; I kind of wanted to do a more wordy post today, a bit of reflection. Today I wanted to remember Mags, my best friend's mother-in-law. She lost her fight with cancer in the early hours of this morning after what was really not a long time at all since she was diagnosed; so frightening how quickly it took her, but I'm sure at the same time it must have seemed agonisingly long to her family to watch her go through that terrible ordeal.

I do know that her family will have lots of fond memories of her to keep with them, as I do - the time we came home on New Year's Eve to find that she had shinnied up a ladder into the upstairs bathroom and then climbed into Michelle's bed and fallen asleep is an absolute favourite and will always make me laugh! We figured out there was someone else in the house besides us when we found a pair of high heels on the bathroom floor, and only then did we spot the ladder outside the kitchen window :) we had come home rather merry ourselves and our powers of observation were not at their greatest!

Certainly I know she will be missed....

Lucky finds!

So I was looking in a charity shop this week while with a client and spotted these two old books of sheet music - they let me have them for £1! Bargain :) now I just need to find something to use them on! I was thinking about scanning them and using the scanned image rather than the original, but then you don't get the cool texture of the old paper....hmmm.....

So this week my df had his first week of work since he was made redundant back in November - it has really hit him hard! Properly run down and a bit grumpy now, but looking forward to this being the beginning of our climb back up out of the recession.

I had some small opportunities this week to work on some backgrounds for art journaling but nothing finished up for showing just yet. I have a circle journal and some inchies to work on before I can indulge myself anyways, but better get done soon because on Monday Kira's Wish Journal class is beginning! I won't be able to start the binding part of the workshop for a little while because I need to shop for supplies, but looking forward to seeing the vids and the techniques, and certainly having a go at the collaging :)

I will be posting a little weekend-long art journal challenge over at The Scrappy Tree on Friday, all welcome from newbs to pro's - I am a newb! Just thought it would be fun to keep on spreading that art journaling message out there - it really is for everyone!

Art journaling and a book!

Been tired enough to sleep on a chicken's lip all day at work (and possibly even been tired enough to doze a little on my desk at times!) but somehow when I got home I managed to find the energy to scan these two pages I was working on over the weekend :)

Finding it glorious beyond words to be taking this journey into all the supplies you should be 'qualified' to use :)

I also wanted to mention a giveaway happening over at Jennifer Williams' blog, Blueskysunburn - it's a marvellous book called Creative Time and Place by Rice Freeman-Zachery - I knew when I saw it that I wanted a read! It's all about making room in your life for working on whatever your creative endeavour might be - I know that's something we all suffer from! The unified cry of 'I wish I had more time to scrap/paint/etc etc!' - fingers crossed there's an answer out there somewhere (or instructions for a Harry Potter-style time turner, I'd be happy with either!)

Don't forget to have a wander around Jennifer's blog while you're there, she has some beautiful pieces of artwork and I love looking there for some uplifting inspiration :)

Hope you're having a happy Monday :)

More art journaling...

Wanted to share this page as a Valentine entry - my inspiration? Julie's inspiration challenge over at The Scrappy Tree. Using this image from artandimagesbykim, the inspiration for this month's challenge was Vintage Valentine. I just loved it! It didn't come out exactly like I thought, but I knew I wanted midnight blue and stars, and with the help of my df I hope that's what came across.

Romeo and Juliet is one of my absolute favourite Shakespeare plays, and I know the opening lines word for word. I wanted to use them here because I felt that the star cross'd lovers spoke about the piece I was trying to make (even if my artistic efforts didn't quite!)

February fun on TST

Just thought that today I would share my projects with The Scrappy Tree over the past two weeks - we are finishing up on Sunday after a fortnight of Valentine projects!

The last one is for my dear sweet fiance - we have been hit by the recession (like everybody!) so he is getting some IOU's in this coupon booklet! We heard yesterday that he has got some temporary work starting Monday, so fingers crossed for things looking up; after all, if I have to keep using up my supplies without replenishing them with a right good shop, I will run out! lol

Double page rant!

Ok, so this is my first double pager finished up. It was inspired by some issues happening in our house at the moment and I thought you know what? I know a creative way to channel! Got some serious ranting put into this page, everything from the strokes of paint to the scribbled journaling! Someone mentioned today that when you put things in capitals it means you're shouting - that's true here!

Spent this evening working on another Scrappy Tree project - it's quite simple but I like how it's coming out. The joys of recycling! Thought I'd start making use of one of those packs of cards I picked up the other day, for our 14 days of Valentine's projects. Only 6 more days to go!

More art journaling...

Spent last night chatting with friends (isn't Skype wonderful? I could write a blog post just about that!) and messing about with some more art journaling. I haven't finished these pages yet but am enjoying making them SO much that I haven't got anything else to show for a weekend spent crafting, so here they are!

Especially with the second page I've been layering and layering and layering some more (hence the lottery ticket - we didn't win by the way!) to keep trying new things. I've been reading a lot about using water soluble pastels or watercolour crayons, and I like the effects that I've seen on people's pages so I went out to get some today and I'm looking forward to playing with those later!

I found Journalgirl's site recently and have found it a great source of information, along with Art Journaling, which is a ning site - sometimes I feel like I spend more time looking and less time doing! which has always been my problem LOL

So this post is my proof that I did something this weekend ;)

Charity shop bargain!

Been busy with projects and blogging for The Scrappy Tree this week so no art journaling completed - I did work on a background that I'm loving, though haven't decided what the journaling will be yet :)

Just had to share this bargain I found in the charity shop today - an old Whist set! I spotted it for £1.50 and thought it would be perfect for altering, along with the two complete decks of cards that came with it!

I am thinking hard about Emily Falcombridge's Deck of Me for one set of these cards... :)

And perhaps One Year Art Journal for the other? Hmmm, decisions decisions...... either way, it's going to be a lot of fun!